


All That Matters (or The Law According to Bucky Barnes)

by SparklyFiend



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 19:17:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1358848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparklyFiend/pseuds/SparklyFiend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for capkink. Prompt: "Of course he's always been sickly, but this is different..." Steve has a serious medical crisis, forcing Bucky to confront the facts that 1) he may really lose his best friend this time, and 2) his panicky reaction to fact #1 doesn't feel like just friendship anymore. As fluffy or smutty as you like.</p><p>This is far too gen for my liking, but it's definitely got the pre-slash in there. Sorry if it's not what you were looking for, OP, orz.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That Matters (or The Law According to Bucky Barnes)

Of the few hard-and-fast rules in Bucky’s life, the one that he seemed to encounter the most was that “Steve always gets sick.” First day of high-school: Steve was sick. Moving into their apartment: Steve was sick.

Hell, they’d even met in the infirmary in the orphanage - Bucky was getting a scrape from an overly-ambitious slide into third patched up, and Steve was in there getting his temperature taken as the nurse had frowned over her glasses at his medical history.

_“This is Steven Rogers,” she’d said, as Steve had held up a tentative hand in greeting. “It would seem he gets sick a lot.”_

_“Hi,” Steve said nervously, and then glanced up at the nurse, adding “yes ma’am, I guess I do.” And then he’d broken into a coughing fit that had distracted Bucky from muttering curse-words under his breath as the other nurse in the sanatorium dabbed iodine onto his elbow._

Bucky had even got used to how to look after Steve when he was sick. When they were in the home, he’d make sure the other kids backed away, either with bribery or his fists, and he’d curl up at the end of Steve’s bed and they’d play Go Fish until the cards and suits all blurred together. When Steve got sick at home now, he’d move the radio into Steve’s room, and make sure he smoked out of the window if Steve’s lungs were bad. If all else failed, he knew how to make a mean chicken soup. Meanwhile, Bucky would worry a little more than he’d ever admit to Steve and screw his back up by sleeping on the couch.

This was all par for the course, part and parcel of Bucky’s Incontrovertible Laws. Nothing to worry about, and in a week’s time, Steve would be fine and they’d go down to the bar and he’d try and snare a nice gal for himself, and her friend for Steve.

This time was different.

Steve was insisting he was fine, that he didn’t need a doctor, he just needed more _sleep_ , and if Bucky would stop fussing over him, he’d be able to get the sleep, and he was fine, Bucky, honestly, he was _fine_.

Bucky let it drop, and headed off to Lloyd’s Audio Emporium for his shift. If Steve was getting sick, he’d need the money to buy the ingredients for the chicken soup. He threw himself into his work (literally: he almost busted a shoulder moving one of those new fancy radio cabinets up onto the twelfth floor of a swanky place in Williamsburg), and came home almost convinced that he’d been worrying way too much.

He could hear Steve wheezing before he got his key in the lock.

“Steve? You okay, buddy?” he asked, toeing the front door open with more force than was strictly necessary.

“No,” Steve murmured softly, as Bucky walked into his room. “I really don’t think I am, Buck,” he admitted. Bucky strode over and rested the back of his hand on Steve’s forehead, grimacing when he realised Steve’s skin was painfully warm.

“Maybe I should sleep it off,” Steve said uncertainly, wincing as he shifted under the blankets. “If I sleep, maybe it’ll all stop hurting, and maybe-,” he broke off into a hacking coughing fit that made Bucky wince in sympathy.

“No,” Bucky answered immediately. “No, forget that, Steve, you need a doctor, you need a goddamn hospital.” Bucky mentally calculated how much he had in his savings account, and then decided that he’d hustle darts and pool in the local bars to help cover the hospital bill.

He’d hustle the whole damn state if it was necessary.

“Buck-,” Steve started, but Bucky just shook his head, and Steve fell silent. That was the first sign that Steve was really sick. He ignored it, and looped an arm around Steve, hoping they’d be able to get him into a hospital room.

___

 

Getting Steve into a hospital room hadn’t been as big a problem as Bucky had expected. It was getting himself in to check on his friend that was the problem.

“I need to see him,” he insisted, for the fourth time, to a staff nurse who could have used a lot less starch in her demeanor and a little more on her uniform. “He’s really sick.”

“I’m aware of that, sir,” she informed him. “That’s why he’s in a hospital. Let the physicians work him up.”

“But-,” Bucky started, only for the nurse to frown at him.

“Family members only,” she stated firmly.

“He has no family,” Bucky replied, steely-eyed and teeth gritted. James Barnes didn’t hit women, not even those who tried his patience and had creased pinafores, but this broad was cutting it pretty close. “He’s an orphan, and he’s sick, and I’m worried,” he sighed, exhaling heavily and forcing his jaw to loosen. “For his sins, he has me instead of family. I’m all he has, and he’s all I have, now may I _please_ see him?”

The nurse pursed her lips, and gave Bucky a long stern glare. “Fine,” she spat out, mouth curled like she’d eaten something sour. “You’re his cousin, understand? Room 189A, up the second flight of stairs and on the left.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Bucky nodded, too relieved to keep his anger for any longer than necessary. He took off at a near-jog, and only just managed to hear her mumble _’goddamn invert_ ’ under her breath.

As he took the stairs two-at-a-time, Bucky found that he was too focussed on seeing Steve to let her jibe even sting. He’d have time to ill-wish her when his buddy was well again. His feet thundered through the echoing corridors as he breathed in the smell of Lysol and floorwax, counting down the numbers until he hit 189A.

“Steve?” he asked, breathlessly pushing into the hospital room, wincing as he saw the doctor sticking his friend with a large-bore needle and taking a blood sample. “Do you hafta do that, doc?” he asked, looking down at the floor, “he looks like he needs all the blood he can get.”

“You’re his family?” the doctor asked, giving Bucky a long look down his nose.

“Cousin,” he nodded, taking a seat at Steve’s bedside. He looked down on Steve’s pale frame and winced. Steve looked even smaller than usual, dressed in hospital pyjamas that were approximately three sizes too big for him. His eyelashes seemed coal-black against his skin, making his face appear almost skeletal.

He fought off a strong impulse to hold Steve’s hand.

“Your cousin is very sick,” the doctor stated, not bothering to look up and meet Bucky’s eyes. Instead, he busied himself with taking Steve’s blood-pressure. “Complications from strep-throat, possible signs of rheumatic fever,” he sighed, and finally gave Bucky a rueful glance. “We’ve placed him under sedation while we try and lower his fever, but that is the least of his problems. I’m afraid that Mr Rogers is not a well man,” he finished wryly.

Bucky nodded slowly, ignoring the swimming feeling in his stomach. He could cope with this; Steve always got sick. Steve just needed to get well again, that was all. “What does he need?” he asked, his voice cracking.

The doctor looked down at Steve’s chart, sucked his teeth, and scribbled something which Bucky couldn’t read upside down. “If he doesn’t improve soon, young man? A priest. I’ll be back in an hour, call a nurse if anything changes.”

With that, the doctor left the room, white coat sweeping with the speed of his steps.

Bucky managed to wait until the door had slammed shut before retching into the trash-can.

____

Three hours in with no change, and Bucky’s hand had found its way to Steve’s, pressing both of them against the frail man’s chest, keeping time with his heartbeat along with the monitor. The crashing waves of nausea had faded, and he was left with an aching sense of numbness. The law was that Steve always got sick, the law never had been and never should be that Steve might die.

Steve wasn’t allowed to leave Bucky alone. He wasn’t sure who he was alone, not anymore. He’d never been supposed to have to think about it.

The most common law seemed to be that Steve always got sick, but the one that mattered - the first unbreakable law that Bucky had never thought about, never even considered was that Steve was always _there_. There for drinking, there for complaining about women, just there for... there for _him_.

When he thought about the future, daydreaming at work or before sleep, there was always SteveandBucky, BuckyandSteve. Dames were nice, but they were never the focus. He was twenty, after all, he didn’t need a ball-and-chain.

He just needed Steve.

He gave Steve’s fingers an extra squeeze, as though that would be the extra difference to help his friend. Nothing changed.

Something slippery-feeling squirmed in his stomach as he realised that he’d heard boys on the job talking about their dames just like that. He remembered laughing Dewson out of the warehouse for talking about his girl like that. _”I don’t need no wife, but my sweet mama’s different, I just want her around me all the time, you know?”_

Bucky tried to stomp down on the sea-sick roiling he was feeling. Whatever else, it didn’t matter if Steve didn’t get well.

Nothing else mattered, really, if Steve didn’t get well.

And since nothing mattered, Bucky bent down and pressed his lips to Steve’s temple, breathing in the scent of his friend’s Brylcreem and stamping down firmly on that tell-tale voice in the back of his head.

His eyes stung, and he swiped at them furiously with his free hand. “You gotta wake up, buddy,” he whispered into Steve’s ear, and let out a small hiccup of a laugh that burnt at his throat. “It’s all that matters.”


End file.
